Saturday, July 04, 2009

Writing Sarah Off   [Victor Davis Hanson]

Conventional wisdom suggests that short-term the Palin decision was unwise — e.g., "quitter," unpredictable, sulking, etc. But what else are her critics really going to say? It's not like a Letterman can trump laughing at her on late-night television as he puns that a Yankees star had sex in a dugout with her 14-year old daughter. Can Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic's website go beyond his slurs that she did not deliver her own child? How much more cleverly can N.Y. feminist pundits tsk-tsk her that she's a Wasilla trailer-park retread?

In other words, it doesn't matter that much what critics say, but — should she pursue politics — only what she does with her newfound time, especially if she travels widely, studies foreign policy, and helps galvanize the party base.

In the long run, she can lecture, earn a good income through speaking, develop a coterie of advisers and supporters, take care of her family, not have the constant political warring on all flanks, and invest time in reflecting and studying issues, visit the country, meet leaders, etc. She's not looking at 2012; but in eight years by 2016 she will be far more savvy, still young, and far more experienced. It matters not all that the Left writes her off as daffy, since they were going to do that whatever she did; the key is whether she convinces conservatives in eight years of travel and reflection that she's a charismatic Margaret Thatcher-type heavyweight.

07/04 10:09 AMShare